Sri Lanka Portuguese Creoles by Mrs Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya

The Creole served as a lingua franca

Asian Portuguese Creoles once flourished in the coastal towns of India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, and Macao but are a dying race. Sri Lanka Portuguese Creole was the successful solution to the intercommunication problems that arose when the Portuguese and Sri Lankans came into contact from the sixteenth century. The Creole served as a lingua franca, the language for external communication and trade purposes, for about three and a half centuries, until English took over this role.

In today's Sri Lanka, the Creole is limited to the spoken form. Most of the speakers are the Burghers in the Eastern province Batticaloa and Trincomalee). But there are also the Kaffirs (people of African origin) in the Northwestern province (Puttalam). The Portuguese, Dutch and British brought the Kaffirs to Sri Lanka, for labour purposes. They have assumed Portuguese culture and religion; later, there was intermarriage between them and the Portuguese Burghers.

.At the 1981 Census, the Burghers (Dutch and Portuguese) were almost 40,000 (0,3% of the population of Sri Lanka). But, the Portuguese Creole is losing ground as a spoken language. As the Sri Lanka Portuguese Creole is now only used at home and many are unable to speak the Creole very well, it is endangered. Many Burghers and Kaffirs emigrated to other countries. There are still 100 families in Batticaloa and Trincomalee and 80 Kaffir families in Puttalam that still speak the Portuguese Creole; they have been out of contact with Portugal since 1656.

Sri Lanka Portuguese Creole Verses by Mrs Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya

The Hugh Nevill Collection in the British Library contains 2,227 manuscripts written in Sinhala, Malay­alam Tamil, and P­ali. Among the Oriental collection of Hugh Nevill manuscripts, lies an authentic source of Portuguese Creole which also represents the largest collection of Asian Portuguese Creole folk verse: the Sri Lanka Portuguese Creole Manuscript.


Hugh Nevill (1847-1897) was an outstanding British civil servant who worked in Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) from 1865 to 1897. He first served as Private Secretary to the Chief Justice. In 1869, he joined the Civil Service and held many positions until 1897, when he resigned as the District Judge of Batticaloa. He then sailed for France with his collection of manuscripts but died there soon after.
Nevill is, however, better known for his scholarship. His interest in studying the origin and development of Sinhala (the language of interethnic communication and the mother tongue of 74% of the population today) led him to make himself one of the pioneer scholars in the dialects of the Veddhås, Rodiyås, and Vanniyås. He founded and edited The Taprobånian, a journal, in which he published many of his articles. Nevill wrote on many disciplines: anthropology, archaeology, botany, ethnology, folklore, geography, geology, history, zoology, mythology, palaeography, and philology. He was also instrumental in the formation of the Kandyan Society of Arts (Mahanuvara Kala Sangamaya), an institution which still flourishes in contemporary Sri Lanka.

The Hugh Nevill Collection contains 2,227 manuscripts. Nevill prepared two descriptive sets of his volumes, one on the prose works and the other on the poetical works. He took his hand-written works to France with the intention of publishing them but his untimely death prevented him seeing this through. His works on the poetical manuscripts were subsequently edited by P.E.P. Deraniyagala and published as Sinhala Kavi (Sinhalese Verse). After his death, Nevill's manuscripts were brought to the British Library from France by a Sri Lankan scholar, Don Martino de Zilva Wickremasinghe. The Hugh Nevill Collection (1904), now in the British Library, contains manuscripts written in Sinhala, Malayålam Tamil, and Påli.

Mr K.D. Somadasa of the British Library, London (formerly librarian at the University of Sri Lanka) has gone through the Nevill manuscripts afresh and has described them in detail. His works run into seven volumes and have been published by the British Library and the Påli Text Society.

The Sri Lanka Portuguese Creole Manuscript

Among the Oriental collection of Hugh Nevill manuscripts lies an authentic source of Portuguese Creole which also represents the largest collection of Asian Portuguese Creole folk verse: the Sri Lanka Portuguese Creole Manuscript. Asian Portuguese Creoles once flourished in the coastal towns of India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, and Macao but are a dying race.

Mr K.D. Somadasa suggested that I translate the Sri Lanka Portuguese Creole manuscript. My translations (into Standard Portuguese and English) have been published as two papers (1995 and 1997) by the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka. The manuscript which contains 1,049 quatrains is divided into three sections: 'Portuguese Song Batticaloa', 'Songs of the Portuguese Kaffrinha ­ Portuguese Negro Songs' and 'The Story of Orson and Valentine'.

The first two groups were sung by mother tongue Creole speakers: the Burghers (people of Portuguese and Dutch descent) and the Kaffirs (people of African descent brought to the island by the Portuguese, Dutch, and British, the three European colonial powers). Batticaloa is a district in the Eastern Province of the island; the capital of the district is Batticaloa Town. It has become the cultural homeland for the Burghers and the Creole community. The roots of their songs are preserved in this manuscript. The Kaffirs have formed a cultural homeland near Puttalam in the Northwestern Province. Modern Kaffir songs can be traced to this manuscript. The story of Valentine and Oersan is known in Sri Lanka as the Balasanta Nadagama, one of the earliest fully-fledged theatrical performances in the Sinhala theatre. In English literature, Valentine and Orson are two figures of romance. In Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol Scrooge said: 'And Valentine and his wild brother, Orson, there they go!'. There are French, English, Dutch, Swedish, Italian, Spanish, and Icelandic versions of this story. In Sri Lanka there are variants of this story, in Påli (5th century AD), in Buddhaghoas's Manorathapurani and in Dharmapala's Paramatthadipani.

The Dutch orthography of this manuscript is particularly interesting in places. Although the scribes have attempted to maintain the Portuguese spelling, it is apparent that they knew Dutch. But this is not surprising as some of the Creole-speakers did know Dutch. Dutch was used for official purposes during the Dutch Era (1658-1796) but Sri Lanka Portuguese Creole was the home language even of the Dutch community. During the British Era (1796-1948), some Burghers opted for English and today the Portuguese Creole is no longer spoken by all the Burghers in the island.

Sri Lanka Portuguese Creole was the successful solution to the intercommunication problems that arose when the Portuguese and Sri Lankans came into contact from the sixteenth century. The Creole served as a lingua franca, the language for external communication and trade purposes, for about three and a half centuries, until English took over this role.

In the last few decades, linguists have realized the importance of studying contact languages (pidgins and creoles) as they are important testing grounds for linguistic theory. In fact, they are to linguists what Drosophila flies and guinea pigs are to biologists. The Portuguese Creole is the oldest creole based on an European language and are therefore particularly interesting. The Nevill manuscript of Sri Lanka Portuguese Creole is, therefore, an invaluable source for linguists. It is also a valuable source for literary, anthropological, and folkloric studies.

Mrs Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya, MSc, is attached to the University College London.
E-mail: S.Jayasuriya@ion.ucl.ac.uk

Vasco Da Gama's heroic voyage: Implications for Sri Lanka: by Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya

This year marks the 500th anniversary of Vasco da Gama's (1469-1524) voyage to India, which is rated as one of the greatest achievements of mankind. It is only comparable to Neil Armstrong's journey to the moon. Da Gama's breakthrough opened up the sea route to India and provided the platform for extensive contact between the Orient (East) and the Occident (West). He gave 'new worlds to the World'. The voyage in 1498 is significant in terms of what it set in train. It turned the Indian Ocean into a Portuguese lake in the century that followed. It short-cut the traditional overland routes to the Orient and undercut in a dramatic fashion huge and established commercial interests. More importantly, it marked the beginning of the Portuguese expansion overseas which spanned five centuries over four continents.

The fleet of the heroic voyage, commanded by Vasco da Gama, culminated and brought to a successful conclusion a long thought out national strategic plan. It included 170 men, some who had previously sailed with Bartholeme Dias to the Cape of Good Hope. One in three of the crew were fated to die of scurvy during the voyage. A dozen convicts were included in the crew to be at the Captain's disposal for any particularly dangerous tasks. Vasco da Gama captained the Sao Gabriel, Paulo da Gama (his brother) the Sao Raphael, Nicolau Coelho the Berrio, and Goncalo Nunes a supply ship. Vasco da Gama was particularly suited to lead the expedition. He was a fidalgo ('aristocrat') who combined the personal qualities required for such an expedition: loyal, fearless, brutal and violent. This assignment could not have been fulfilled by a gentle leader; da Gama was made to order.

Tragic
Da Gama's achievement was turned into a compelling and unforgettable story in The Lusiads (Os Lusiadas) by Luis de Camoes (1524-80), who was born on the day that da Gama died. Camoes had a classical education in the University of Coimbra. He fought as a young soldier in Morocco, to learn the Moorish character and methods of war, where he lost an eye. He was imprisoned in Lisbon for partaking in a street fight and was released on condition that he served the Portuguese Crown in India. In 1553 Camoes sailed for India, from Lisbon, and learned the lure of the sea. In 1556 he sailed further east to Macao. Two years later he embarked on his journey back to Lisbon, but was shipwrecked and lost all his possessions except for his manuscript of The Lusiads. Camoes was a scholar and a soldier, who travelled the world for his King, but returned to poverty, blindness and a posthumous apotheosis.

Camoes had the advantage of dealing with recorded history of which he was in part a witness. His experience and knowledge gave him an unique opportunity to write The Lusiads, which symbolizes the tradition of Portugal. The Lusiads was modelled on the classical epics of Homer and Virgil. Camoes's goal was to write a poem which should rival Virgil's Aeneid. He has left his personal impress on the Lusiads which does not appear as an imitation of the Aeneid. The Aenied is called after a man, Aeneas. The Lusiads is called after a people (The Sons of Lusus). The Portuguese were believed to be descendants of Lusus, (the eponymous hero of Lusitania), the mythical first settler in Portugal.

The sense of "continuation" between the Aeneid and The Lusiads provides a vehicle for Camoes to establish himself as the Portuguese Homer and also the Portuguese Virgil, the two supreme literary figures of Greek and Roman culture. In epic, lyric and heroic poetry, Camoes was outstanding. The Lusiads has historic relevance to Sri Lanka, (unlike the Aeneid or the Iliad), as the event narrated played a part in shaping Sri Lankan history and socioculture. It seems to have influenced Kustantinu Hatana (a war ballad about the Portuguese General Constantine de Sa) written by Dom Jeronimo Alagiy-avanna, the greatest Sinhalese poet of the 15th/16th centuries, and the last of the Classical Sinhalese poets.

The first verse of The Lusiads refers to Taprobane as Sri Lanka was known at that time.

Armas, e os Baroes assinalados,
Que da occidental praia Lusitana
Por mares nunca de antes navegados
Passaram ainda alem da Taprobana,
Em perigos, e guerra esforcados
Mais, do que promettia forca humana:
E enter gente remota edificarao
Novo reino, que tanto sublimarao:

Arms and the renowned heroes
Who from the western Lusitanian shore
On seas never before navigatd
Passing even beyond Taprobane,
In dangers, and forced wars,
More, of what promised the human force,
And among remote people, raised

A new kingdom that so exalted: [my translation]

The Portuguese started to explore the east beyond India from their base in India. They established trading posts and fortresses in Sri Lanka from 1517 onwards. Their first visit to Sri Lanka, in 1505, was accidental as they were windswept into Galle harbour during their voyage to the Maldive Islands. The Portuguese were the first Europeans to make extensive contact with the Sri Lankans. Only European ambassadors, traders, travellers and seamen had visited Sri Lanka prior to the Portuguese colonisers. Interaction between the Portuguese and Sri Lankans has left several sociocultural imprints on the island. The Portuguese stamp is particularly strong in Sri Lankan languages, religion, education, administration, food, dress, names, art, music and dance. The evolution of a Portuguese-based Creole, (Sri Lanka Portuguese Creole), Roman Catholicism, Portuguese surnames (e.g. Perera, Silva, Pieris), Portuguse personal names (Pransisku, Peduru, Juvan), Portuguese titles (Sinno, Dona, Don), Indo-Portuguese furniture, baila music etc are all results of this interaction.

The Portuguese were displaced from their coastal colonies by the Dutch in 1658. The British took over these colonies in 1796 and eventually colonized the entire island until independence in 1948. The Portuguese era marked the beginning of modern Sri Lanka. It changed Sri Lanka's orientation away from India and gave the island a distinct identity moulded by 450 years of western influence. Paradoxically, the Portuguese imprint appears to be the most deep rooted in Sri Lanka, despite contact with two other European powers who colonized at a later date.